


In Shreds

by Lexigent



Category: Coriolanus - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 16:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt <a href="http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/194011.html?thread=8350427#cmt8350427">flag, spear, name</a> at Fic Promptly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Shreds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jujitsuelf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujitsuelf/gifts).



Martius has fought everywhere the Roman Empire has planted its flag in the last seventeen years. He remembers the places not by their positions on a map but by the marks they have left upon his body—maps get redrawn every year, but his scars stay with him. Silvia Arsia, where his body first felt the cold bite of enemy swords and he nearly lost his left hand; Pometia, where his consul was felled by a spear to the groin and he himself came home with a wound in the side that took weeks to heal; Lake Regillus and Aricia, which brought him cuts all across his chest from particularly savage hand-to-hand combat and a stab in the right shoulder that nearly ended not only his military career, but also his life—and then the lastest, Corioli, for which they even gave him a new name to go with the oaken garland. Before they cast him out and he ended up here, in Aufidius' house in Antium, alive against all odds.

As he scrapes off the oil from bathing, taking great care around the wounds from this latest engagement that burn him still, red and angry, it occurs to him that maybe the Romans themselves are a disease, the way they wound and savage all foreign countries and settle in the cuts like an infestation that spreads like wildfire and inflames any remaining healthy flesh until there is nothing left of it.

He calls for one of the slaves for fresh dressings and goes to find Aufidius when all is finished, to be shown where he is to sleep tonight. Aufidius, as he finds, has been waiting in the atrium, and walks Martius to the bedroom that has been prepared for him without any further prompting from Martius—he gathers his face and the bandages must do the talking for him.

Outside the door, Aufidius embraces him and sets a kiss on his lips same as when Martius arrived earlier today—an invisible mark, yet one that burns Martius just as much as the gashes across his body.

He wants to open his mouth in invitation, wants to give in and give himself to Aufidius all in one piece, but his cuts remind him that he is not ready to be conquered again, however benign the force may be. And so he thanks his host and closes the door behind him, feeling only the memory of his touch on his skin as he lies down to sleep.


End file.
